For years, the luxury goods retailers along London’s Bond Street have been
immune from the vagaries of the consumer economy.

RPI and CPI, interest rates and unemployment figures, have rarely mattered to the super-rich who frequent the thoroughfare. It has, to a large extent, existed in a bubble.

But the collapse of Lehman Brothers 35 days ago and the subsequent meltdown of the global financial sector have mercilessly pricked that bubble. The bulletproof bankers and hedgies, with their fat bonuses and spendthrift partners, have been hobbled.

“The game changed as of that week,” said Mark Esiri, chairman of Smythson, the luxury leather goods and stationery retailer, referring to the US government bail-out of two weeks ago.

Beverley Aspinall, the managing director of Fortnum & Mason, the upmarket emporium on nearby Piccadilly, says that the attitudes of the super-rich have changed. “In the last few weeks people with a lot of money have started to worry about protecting their money. People are starting to think something unthinkable could happen,” she said.

Ms Aspinall says that the number of hedge fund managers popping in for magnums of Cristal has “really slowed down”.

Figures out today from the British Retail Consortium show just how tricky things have become. Retail sales in central London fell by 0.04pc over September on a like-for-like basis, their worst performance since the summer of 2005 when the July bombings hit sales.

The new economic reality means that high-end retailers in London’s West End are having to adjust the way that they operate. They are keeping stocks tight, reducing prices where they can, and keeping a beady eye on trade in the run-up to the key Christmas trading period.

Nick English is a director at Bremont, the luxury watch maker. He said that the company noticed a marked change in trading in the US around two weeks ago, when the markets crashed and the government intervened in the banking system. “America has gone quiet, just in the last [few] weeks. It was so marked. The day the crash happened you could see shopping stop,” he said.

Despite the economic dial moving permanently, luxury retailers are

still doing far better than their

mass-market high street rivals. Mark Henderson, chief executive of Gieves & Hawkes, the Saville Row tailor, said that the retailer had its strongest week of the year two weeks ago. Sales at Fortnum & Mason are 40pc up year-on-year and the store is seeing more Japanese, Russian and east European visitors than it ever has. Sales at Smythson, meanwhile, are up 10pc on last year.

Michael Ward, the managing director of Harrods, the Knightsbridge department store, said that although sales remain good he — along with all other retailers — has had to absorb price rises from suppliers as commodity and raw material costs have soared.

Nic McElhatton, the deputy chairman of Christie’s, South Kensington, said that sales have been incredibly strong for two years but added that he has some concerns over spending in the middle market.

Still, the luxury sector is braced for tough times ahead. So what other steps are these retailers taking to cope with the turbulent year in prospect? Smythson’s Mr Esiri says: “Despite being eternal optimists we are realistic. We assume [sales] will be flat year-on-year.”

He says that where it can, Smythson is de-specking products. This means that it is removing some of the bells and whistles from goods to allow them to be sold at a lower price, but with the quality intact. For example if a leather wallet or diary has gold protectors on the corner, these will simply be dispensed with, rather than the quality of the whole product suffer. The company has a firm strategy for dealing with the downturn. Crossing fingers is not enough. “Hope isn’t strategy,” said Mr Esiri.

Ms Aspinall says that she is “cautious” about Christmas, particularly as Fortnum & Mason does a lot of corporate gifts over the festive season. Again, the retailer has flexible contingency plans for the key Christmas period to deal with any eventuality.

As ever there are counter-cyclical trends going in. Some well-heeled customers are lifting their spirits by splashing out even more than usual. Jimmy Choo chief executive Joshua Shulman said that many customers are buying indulgent, unusual and expensive shoes to treat themselves. For example gladiator sandals, which sell for £575, are “literally flying out” of stores, he said.

Likewise watchmaker Bremont recently sold out a limited edition range of 120 watches that were twice the price of its average watches. Fabric sales in department store Liberty are well up.

But Fortnum & Mason’s Ms Aspinall has the most convincing reason why established luxury retailers are likely to emerge intact; history. “When you’ve been trading for over 300 years you know you can weather this storm,” she said.